Nowhere to Land
by Eponymous Rose
Summary: A ceasefire is declared in Armonia, but the war has just begun. Trust your team. Chorus will take care of its own.
1. Chapter 1

"This is Dr. Emily Grey of the Federal Army of Chorus. Come in, Armonia."

There's a sputter of static, a cacophony of held-breath silence as the small ship bucks and swoops its way through another patch of extreme turbulence. Vanessa reaches for a hand-hold, settles for leaning against the wall of the cargo bay, tries to convince herself that this is just like her old commute on the maglev train to the university. The ship is shuddering beneath her outstretched palm, and she suppresses the ridiculous urge to give it a comforting pat.

Cutting through another burst of static: "General Doyle, here. Emily, you're alive!"

Grey leans back, rubbing the back of her hand against her helmet, leaving a smear of blood across the faceplate. "Yup, I'm super alive. But we're gonna need medical support when we land. Tucker here's been leaving his blood all over the place against my recommendation. It's kind of interesting how much you can do without and still survive, but he's probably hitting that limit about now."

A pause. Vanessa wonders, a little maliciously, whether Doyle's gone pale at this semi-graphic description, whether he's on the verge of fainting. But he only says, "I understand. I'll patch you through to the medics on the ground here and ensure they're ready to meet you. And Emily? Be careful up there. It's our ship and our pilot, but there are a lot of rebels aboard."

Simmons, perched on a bench next to Dr. Grey, glances up sharply at Vanessa, who shakes her head. Grey ignores them both, uncapping a syringe of biofoam borrowed from the pilot's IFAK. "Will do, boss. Hey, Tucker, this is going to hurt, like, a lot."

"Thank fuck," Tucker says. His voice is soft and shaky, but when Vanessa cranes her neck beyond the press of bodies surrounding his makeshift stretcher, she can see him rolling his eyes. "Maybe I'll pass out and I won't have to listen to Palomo's crying anymore."

"My captain's so _brave_," Palomo wails. Smith, standing beside him, sighs and pats him on the shoulder. Bitters just kicks him in the shin.

"Shut the fuck up, Palomo," Tucker says, in a fond sort of way, then hisses when Grey moves forward with the needle.

It's not that Vanessa has an irrational fear of needles, exactly. It's just that she's been on both ends of battlefield injections enough times to have cultivated a purely _rational_ fear of needles. She looks away, swallowing hard, and makes another grab for the wall when the ship shakes violently.

At the other end of the cargo hold, as far from the crowd as it's possible to get in a tiny ship being tossed around like a tin can, the two Freelancers are sitting side-by-side. Vanessa moves in a little closer, partly to escape the medical proceedings, partly out of curiosity. These two were, after all, supposed to be the salvation of the New Republic. Two valorous Freelancers to lead them to victory.

Right now, they don't look especially valorous. The one in grey armor with a helmet at his feet—Agent Washington—is sitting with his head tilted back, a wad of cloth pressed to his bloodied, broken nose. By process of elimination, Agent Carolina is the one shoring him up against the corner of the hold with one shoulder pressed into his. She's still in full armor, the bright blue-green marred only by scuff marks and a couple spots where blood is welling through hairline cracks.

Even as Vanessa watches, Carolina shifts, presses her palm to the back of Washington's head, then pushes his head forward, down toward his knees. "Hey," she says. "You know you're gonna choke or throw up if you lean back like that. Lean forward."

Washington gives a nasal and particularly pathetic-sounding sigh. Blood drips onto the deck when he adjusts the cloth at his nose. "Okay, boss," he says, then coughs when Carolina puts more of her weight into leaning on the back of his head, tousling his improbably white-blond hair. "_C'mon_," he groans, but he's smiling behind the bloody cloth.

Carolina looks up, catches Vanessa staring, and pops to her feet, giving Washington a little shove on her way up. "General Kimball," she says. The grin in her voice is pure adrenaline. "We spoke over the radio."

"That's right," Vanessa says, a little blankly. The details of the past few hours have mostly been washed out by the waves of panic unfurling in her gut. She keeps tracing events back and back and back, holding them up, examining them in a new light. Her promotion to general at Felix's strong recommendation, for instance... "It looks like Dr. Grey has stabilized Tucker. I'm glad your team made it through okay."

Carolina glances back at Washington, then, more hesitantly, shifts her gaze to encompass the Reds and Blues. "Yeah," she says. "When Tucker suggested this plan, I have to admit I wasn't expecting him to follow through the way he did. He's the reason this worked at all."

Washington snorts. "He's gonna want that in writing," he says. "And as for the Reds and Blues, I hate to say I told you so, but..."

She reaches over to give him a little shove, and Vanessa watches, fascinated, as the tired smile spreads again across Washington's face. The Freelancers aren't quite what she was expecting based on the minimal intel she's managed to dig up, not to mention the Captains' baffling and often physically impossible descriptions of them. At this point, fire-breathing drill sergeant dragons wouldn't have surprised her, but this easy and exhausted camaraderie is just... familiar. Ordinary.

She catches herself staring again, and this time Carolina stares back with a casual, hip-slung stance, apparently unconcerned by the massive unstable electric field that's threatening to shake the ship to pieces. Dragging herself to some semblance of attention, Vanessa says, "We'll have medical personnel waiting to triage you when we get to Armonia."

"It's mostly a lot of bumps and bruises," Carolina says. "Apart from Tucker." She nudges Washington again, a little more gently. "And you."

"I've had worse," Washington says.

"You were unconscious for almost half an hour," Carolina says. There's a new thread of steel in her voice. "I know, par for the course, but Locus must have left you alive deliberately. Better to get you checked out now."

Washington's brow furrows when Carolina mentions Locus's name; not in anger, but in confusion. Vanessa thinks that at some point she'd better have her people get a report from the Reds and Blues who've been stationed with the Feds all this time.

Right. Her people. It occurs to her that she hasn't even seen a casualty report yet. The turbulence has been letting up as they move further out of range of the destroyed jamming tower, but her gut's still lurching, the back of her throat tasting adrenaline-bitter.

"We'll get accommodations ready for all of you once we land," she promises, a little desperately. "If nothing else, I'm sure Doyle can set something up."

"You're pretty quick to trust him," Carolina says. She crosses her arms, cocks her head to one side. "This could still be an elaborate assassination attempt. Crash the ship. Take us all out in one convenient fiery explosion."

Vanessa feels her hands clench into fists and relaxes them with an effort. "I wouldn't send my people on a Federal Army ship alone. Everyone needs this show of trust right now. Besides, Doyle's as much a victim as we are in all this." The words are sour in her mouth. "We'll find a way to help. It's the least we can do after you... after we..."

Carolina moves a step closer, rests a hand on Vanessa's shoulder, her grip heavy and firm on the join between her pauldron and chestplate. Vanessa jolts away, startled, and Carolina draws back, keeps her hand raised for a moment in apology. "You're doing fine," she says. "We've been talking about this. We'd like to help the people of Chorus in any way we can before moving forward with our own plans. Feel free to draw on our experience, okay? We know a thing or two about betrayals."

Washington snorts, then lapses into a coughing fit. When Carolina turns to look at him, Vanessa says, too quickly, "I appreciate the offer," and retreats to the cockpit to stand awkwardly in a corner while the Fed pilot makes an obvious effort to ignore her presence.

From here, she has an open view of the planet rushing past below, green and lush and impossibly distant. It's stunning. She figures maybe she's spent too long comforted by the enclosure of cave walls.

Moving forward a little, she cranes her neck to look at the sky. They're flying low enough that the stars aren't visible beyond the cloudy blue of the atmosphere, but something about the rumble of ship's engines beneath her feet, the smell of recirculated air, dredges up memories of longer flights in her youth, of endless starscapes. She wonders, vaguely, whether the Freelancers ever forgot what it was like to live with both feet on the ground.

The remembered weight and warmth of Carolina's hand on her shoulder is already fading. She knows the Freelancers' offer of aid will last exactly as long as it remains convenient for them to stay. Which means, as always, that Chorus will just have to take care of its own.

She takes a deep breath and opens a comm link to the capital.

* * *

The Reds and Blues leave two months later.

Epsilon picks up a trail, something he calls 'Hargrove's evil breadcrumbs', leading to one of Chorus's moons. It's the best chance they've had to run Hargrove down, and Tucker spends an hour that morning trying to convince Vanessa to come with them, pacing up and down the length of her office, talking agitatedly with his hands.

"There's so much going on," Vanessa says, when he finally winds down and slumps into a chair across from her. "I can barely afford to take a long lunch. If I leave on a mission like this, one with no set endpoint, we risk losing the concessions the Federal Army has offered us altogether. Palomo will go with you, I think. The others have duties here."

Tucker groans, scrubs at his face with the palm of his hand. "_I_ have duties here, which first of all, why the fuck do I care about paperwork all of a sudden so fuck you, and also, this is kinda messing me up. I want to stay and help. But If we have a chance at kicking the shit out of Hargrove for a while..."

"You should take that chance," Vanessa says. She smiles, crookedly. "You're good at this restructuring stuff, but you're not irreplaceable, Tucker. We'll do okay without you. And you're always welcome to come back to stay someday."

He blinks, startled, like the possibility's never actually occurred to him before now. "Yeah?"

She leans back in her chair and broadens her smile. "Chorus could use a hero like you. The offer stands, when all this is over. And hey, bring your kid."

Tucker smiles. Doesn't smirk, doesn't leer, just smiles, shy and genuine. "I told Wash that Sanghelios is our next stop, assuming we all survive this. He started stammering and got all high-pitched-panicky and shit. This is gonna be hilarious." He stands, pushes his hands into the pockets of his ordinary black fatigues. "Hey, thanks. I mean that. You New Republic assholes kinda fucked me up, but I think I'm okay with it."

Vanessa stands as well, leans across her desk to shake his hand. "That's our specialty. And Tucker? Can you send Carolina in here at some point? I've enjoyed working with her, and I'd like to get her opinion on a few more matters before you guys leave."

"Uh," says Tucker. "You didn't hear? Wash and Carolina left a few hours ago to scout out the moon for us. They're already gone."

Vanessa sits down. "Oh," she says. "That's all right, then."

Tucker furrows his brow, cocks his head to one side. "For what it's worth, Carolina's not big on goodbyes. It's sort of her thing."

Swallowing a sigh, Vanessa tells herself she's mostly just irritated at all the incomplete paperwork this has dumped unceremoniously on her door. Chorus will look after its own. "So I've heard. Good luck, Tucker. Take care of yourself."

He watches her a second longer, then grins and says, "Yeah. I'm real good at taking care of myself. Bow-chicka—"

Vanessa has to put her head down on her folded arms and laugh.

* * *

Two days later, Vanessa is slumped over her desk, fading in and out of an exhausted doze over the military working group's latest action plan, when the door to her office opens without preamble. She coughs and sits up, rubbing at her sore neck, says, "Next time, you should probably kno—"

She stops.

Carolina's hair catches her eye first. The dye's been fading out over the past few weeks, but now it's back to a vibrant blood-of-your-enemies red, growing messily out of its close-cropped cut. What's also new is the stripe of fluorescent blue-green, a color Vanessa immediately recognizes as originating from the dye brewed up by some of the more chemically-minded soldiers of the New Republic using the radioactive algae in the lake near their old headquarters. It's a political statement, she thinks, that might muddy waters in the ongoing integration with the Federal Army.

Her brain ticks over. Carolina. Here. Now. "You left," she says.

Carolina shrugs. There's a smugness to her casual stance, a half-smile on her lips that she keeps tamping down. She does that a lot, probably forgets her face isn't hidden by a helmet anymore. "Just to scout out the moon, make sure those assholes weren't walking straight into a trap. I mean, it was definitely a trap, but Wash and I managed to clear it out. He's leading them in. I came back once I knew my team would be safe." She squints at Vanessa. "Were you _sleeping_?"

Vanessa shrugs, straightens the datapad on her desk. "Long night. You left a lot of things half-finished, you know."

Carolina grins, drops a whole stack of datapads in front of Vanessa. "Military working group's fourth draft of the action plan. Got it finished on the shuttle ride over here."

Vanessa touches the front page with one hand. Carolina's New Republic fatigues are clean, but there's grit and dirt caked into the reader's screen. "You could've said something. I'm glad to see you, Carolina, but you can't just leave like that without—" She sighs, pushes the sleep-flattened hair out of her eyes. "I already reassigned your office."

Gradually, as she speaks, Carolina's smile fades to a look of concern. Confusion. "You really didn't think I was coming back."

For a moment, the exhaustion and frustration and relief take over, and Vanessa says, "I'm not just another stepping stone on your road to redemption, you know. This isn't something you can do nights and weekends to, to make yourself feel better about the things you've done. If you're here, you're here to commit. There are a lot of lives at stake. We matter."

Carolina actually flinches, and then, without missing a beat, snaps to perfect attention. Her voice, when she speaks, is tense and cold and, Vanessa realizes, desperately apologetic. "I never said you didn't matter."

Vanessa watches her for a moment, the way her knees are locked, the way she's looking fixedly at the wall just over Vanessa's right shoulder, the way her face is frozen and pale and expressionless. This acceptance, this _expectation_ of a dressing-down, she thinks, is an old habit for Carolina. She feels like there's a stone sinking slowly in her gut, a slow, horrific realization unfurling.

"I'm sorry," Vanessa says. Carolina blinks once, slowly. "That was unfair. You've put in a lot of work, and I appreciate the help. I'm just exhausted and a little overwhelmed that you're here, is all. And I wish you'd told me you were coming back."

The mask crumbles a little; Carolina meets her eyes again. "I should be the one apologizing. I guess I made an assumption that you _knew_..." She stops, takes a breath, goes back to staring at the wall.

"Sit down," Vanessa says, and then, because Carolina falls more than sits in the chair across from her, she adds, "Have you had anything to eat since you got back?"

"I came straight here," Carolina says, and leans back in the chair, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. "Thought I'd surprise you."

Vanessa snorts. "Well, you certainly managed that. I'm calling out for curry. In the meantime, you can work here, if you'd like. It might be some time before we have another office free."

Carolina nods, reaches for one of the datapads, and sits crosslegged in the chair. After a moment, she says, "General, I have a report to make."

Vanessa glances up at her, but the formality is more self-consciously polite than anything else. She crosses her arms, pushing back in her chair. "I'm not gonna like this, am I?"

Carolina sighs heavily. "I was debating whether or not to bring it up, whether to maybe start investigating myself, but you deserve to know. We ran into some of Felix's goons on the moon, got some information from them. They've got people embedded in both the New Republic and the Federal Army. Key positions, by the sound of things."

"Yeah," says Vanessa, tapping her fingers against the edge of her desk. "We knew that from the start. A few have been caught out. Others are being fed misinformation."

Carolina shakes her head. "No, I mean, new converts. People who're unsatisfied with the merger with the Federal Army. People you might otherwise trust."

Vanessa shrugs. "Okay," she says. "We'll keep an eye out."

Carolina actually does a double-take. "We'll _keep an eye out_? These people could be planning, I don't know, _assassinations_. And it's not gonna be the people you're watching, the ones who're sitting on the fence, it's gonna be the people who believe in your cause the most strongly, your most trusted allies. Do you understand that?"

"Yeah," says Vanessa again, leaning forward. "I do. Let me remind you of something, Carolina: it's in Hargrove's best interest to sow chaos and suspicion in our ranks. He can accomplish that by planting spies, riling up the extremists, or he can do that by sending you here to spark a witch-hunt." She shrugs. "Given the option, I'd rather trust my team. I'd rather have my trust betrayed again than be the one to betray theirs."

Carolina actually splutters for a moment before finding her words. "Even after what happened with Felix?"

"Especially after what happened with Felix."

Carolina stands, shakily, leans forward against the desk between them. "Then let me be paranoid for you, General. Let me be the one to doubt them. I can start pulling some histories, look for connections." She wilts a little under Vanessa's calm gaze. "I'll be subtle. Nothing overt. Just another set of eyes on the situation."

"Okay."

Carolina says, "I'm not going to back down on this," then pauses, seems to backtrack over the conversation. "Okay?"

"Yeah," says Vanessa. "Okay. It sounds like a reasonable precaution. I imagine you could be discreet if you really put your mind to it. And I'd appreciate the intelligence reports."

The crack about her discretion earns her a suspicious squint from Carolina, but then her face melts into a relieved smile. "Okay," she says. "I'll start investigating."

"Sounds like a plan," says Vanessa and, in the same breath, adds, "I like your hair."

When Carolina blushes, it's a fascinating process that starts with a faint flush at the back of her neck and spreads to her cheeks and the tips of her ears. But her voice is warm and steady when she says, "Yours looks like you just mashed it into your desk while you were sleeping on the job. Get some rest next time, huh?" Grinning, she folds herself back into the chair with her datapad.

Vanessa smiles into her hand and pulls up a list of curry delivery menus.


	2. Chapter 2

Four weeks later, Armonia's harried municipal government announces that the mayoral election will be proceeding as scheduled, with the Fed-vetted incumbent and his Fed-vetted opponent as the only two candidates. When Vanessa hears the news—live on TV and not via the channels of communication that Doyle's promised to keep open—she grabs Carolina and drags her to a nearby restaurant, empty at this time of day, and talks her ear off over an early dinner about how this is exactly how everything started in the first place, these fixed elections.

They're digging into a small, shared plate of gulab jamun for dessert by the time Vanessa finally winds down. She sighs and leans back in her chair, letting the dough melt in her mouth, leaving a faintly honeyed taste of cardamom. "You can finish those," Vanessa says. "I'm stuffed."

Carolina shrugs and downs the last three on the plate in one giant mouthful. The restaurant's got a faint, warm lighting scheme that brings out the gleam in her eyes, casts fascinating shadows below her cheekbones as she chews. She's wearing her usual fatigues, but the shirt's partially covered by an unzipped hoodie, borrowed from Vanessa as her sole concession to the colder weather. The streak of blue-green in her hair is braided today, hanging against the side of her face. She looks good, Vanessa thinks, without her usual array of military trappings. Relaxed. Human.

When Carolina finally swallows, she says, "I recommend a public protest of some sort."

Vanessa shrugs, lethargic in her postprandial stupor. "We're already planning to use this as leverage against any concessions they might demand in the military restructuring."

"But that's not public," says Carolina. "Your people aren't going to know what's going on behind closed doors. They're going to be angry. They're going to blame you. This is all the leverage needed for—" She stops, staring over Vanessa's shoulder. "Is that the new intern?"

Vanessa turns in her chair to face the entrance, where a young man is standing, apparently letting his eyes adjust to the darker room. When he sees them, he smiles and waves, holding up a datapad. "Life goes on," says Vanessa, and beckons him over. "What's up, Martin?"

Martin jogs up to their table. He's one of the more promising bunch from the political science program over at Armonia University, but he's also the most fanatically dedicated. Vanessa's had to speak with him several times about his habit of calling her up at ungodly hours to talk new ideas. "Another report?" she says, holding her hand out for the datapad.

He doesn't give it to her. She blinks, looks at him more closely. Even in the dim light, she can tell that he's sweating, like he ran all the way here. He keeps glancing up at Carolina, then back to her, but he never quite meets her eyes. "Martin? You okay?"

Martin sighs, shifts the datapad out of his hand. In its place is a small knife, plain, the handle dull and featureless and wrapped with tape over some of the more scuffed edges. Vanessa recognizes it instantly as the New Republic army's standard-issue ka-bar. Across the table from her, Carolina stiffens. Vanessa says, "Martin," once, softly.

Martin takes the knife in a shaking grip and, in one firm motion, plunges it straight down into Vanessa's shoulder.

Vanessa yells, curls in on herself so abruptly that she nearly bashes her face against the table. Martin drags the knife free and grabs a handful of her shirt, yanking her back for another blow, but Vanessa already has her feet under her, slams her chair back into him with all the force of her pain and terror.

Carolina moves quickly, smoothly, closes one hand around Martin's wrist and _twists_ so he drops the knife with a howl of pain, releasing Vanessa and stumbling back into Carolina's brutally efficient arm lock. Vanessa jerks away, gets tangled up in the chair, hits the floor hard. She rolls onto her side, curling around the agony unfurling in her shoulder, her cheek scraping against the dirt and dried mud on the floor, and bites her tongue to keep from screaming.

Her attention focuses, inexplicably, on a discarded candy wrapper on the floor under the table, crumpled and wedged up where the auto-vac can't reach it.

"Call an ambulance," Carolina says. Her voice is loud but not panicked. "Someone hang on to this asshole for me."

Vanessa pulls her shaking hand back enough to look at the wound, a horrifically deep gouge in the top of her left shoulder. Her left arm, underneath her, has gone completely numb. Blood is streaming from the wound at an alarming rate, the tickling warmth of it running down her side. She sighs, pressing her face into the floor, focusing on her breathing.

Some time passes. Something warm and soft is tucked under her head. Carolina is crouched over her, saying, "Vanessa, you need to listen to me. The knife caught an artery. You're losing a lot of blood right now. The ambulance is on its way, but they're gonna want you awake, okay?"

Vanessa half-raises her head, squints at Carolina, then looks down at her shoulder again. It's pleasantly numb, but there's a sticky pool of blood spreading beneath it. Carolina's white fingers are pressed into the wound, her other hand combing back through Vanessa's hair.

It's Carolina's borrowed hoodie under her head, she realizes. When she breathes in the smell of her, overlaid with honey and cardamom, she also breathes in the coppery stench of blood, thick and heavy in the air. Her stomach clenches, and she twists and thrashes against Carolina's firm grip until Carolina says, "Stop _moving_."

Vanessa stills with an effort, gasping for breath. She starts to tell Carolina about the candy wrapper under the table, then says instead, "I'm afraid of needles," because it seems like the more pertinent information.

Carolina blinks at her. Smiles, a little shakily. "Oh, don't be such a baby," she says, and the warmth and weight of her hand on Vanessa's forehead chases her down into the dark.

* * *

Vanessa wakes up eight hours later in the hospital. The guard on duty explains that Carolina is busy meeting with an investigative task force, but she's left a datapad next to the bed, open to a news article about the assassination attempt. The picture is an impossibly well-framed shot, apparently taken through the window of the restaurant, of Vanessa on the ground and Carolina crouched over her, one hand pressed to her forehead as though pushing back her hair. The photographer's captured a microsecond of emotion on Carolina's face. From this angle, in this context, she looks absolutely gutted.

_**GENERAL KIMBALL'S SECRET PARAMOUR WITNESSES ATTACK,**_ the caption bellows. Carolina has drawn a little heart around the image and scribbled _**we've really got to be more careful, darling**_ in the corner.

Vanessa sinks back into the pillows, lets herself drift into an uneasy sleep. Her team, she thinks blearily, has this covered. Chorus will look after its own.

* * *

"Martin was a plant," Carolina says, one week after the attack. She's sitting in her usual chair, her feet propped up on the corner of Vanessa's desk. Somewhere along the way, they've both forgotten about finding her a new office. "His brother was killed in the fighting two years ago. Our investigation found connections directly to Felix and Locus's band of space pirates. He may have been recruited by one of the soldiers in Armonia on the day of the ceasefire."

Vanessa absorbs this information, shifting her arm uncomfortably in its sling. Carolina, despite her would-be casual pose, isn't quite meeting her eyes. Hasn't been for days. "You think there are others."

Carolina shrugs. "Even if there aren't any more plants, his attack might embolden people with legitimate concerns. We need to make sure we're being heard. History repeating itself isn't something we can tolerate. At some point we need to come down hard."

"We," Vanessa echoes, thoughtfully. Carolina glances up at her with a furrowed brow, but Vanessa just reaches out with her good hand for the datapad in Carolina's lap. When Carolina tosses it onto the desk, Vanessa scrolls through the first few pages, most of which consist of simple analyses of poorly scribbled death threats with no real follow-up. She pauses when a familiar face scrolls past. "Antoine Bitters? You're investigating _Bitters_?"

"His mother and cousin were both soldiers in the New Republic," says Carolina. "Both were killed in the fighting. He has strong connections to New Republic leadership. If I were—" She stops, starts again. "Hargrove will be looking for people who have a legitimate reason to believe that the New Republic isn't doing right by them. From where I'm sitting, Bitters looks like a target."

Vanessa taps the edge of the datapad. "What do you propose we do?"

Carolina shrugs, kicks her feet down and off the desk, sits up straighter. "I propose that we bring him in for questioning."

"Absolutely not."

Carolina flinches, glances away for a moment, then looks back, her jaw set and stubborn. "Vanessa, look, I understand you want it to look like you trust them—"

Vanessa leans forward, winces as her sling drags against the armrest of her chair. "That's my point exactly," she says. "I _do_ trust them."

Carolina looks down for a moment, rubs at her forehead. "This is going to keep happening, Vanessa. They're going to keep turning against you unless you start coming down harder on them."

Vanessa shakes her head. "We're on the same side, Carolina. I won't tear my team apart looking for the weak link. That's not how this works."

Carolina's head is resting on her hand now, her elbow propped against the armrest of her chair, and she's just looking at Vanessa, quiet, contemplative. She says, "Felix. Martin." They've had this argument so many times by now that they've developed a shorthand.

"Being wrong twice doesn't mean you can never be right again," Vanessa says. "There's no endpoint in self-doubt, no way out of it once you get started down that spiral. You can't live like that."

Carolina sighs. It's a slow, quiet sound. Exhausted. "You'd be surprised," she says, then stands. "All right. I'll leave Bitters alone. I'll keep following up on Martin." She hesitates, then meets Vanessa's eyes, really matches her gaze, for the first time since the attack. Out of armor, she has an unexpected tendency to blush; now the back of her neck is flushed with color. "I'm just glad you're all right. You're... important."

Vanessa smiles and pushes to her feet, a little painfully. "The New Republic has had plenty of leaders before me."

"Important to me," Carolina says. She hesitates, long enough for the blush to creep to the tips of her ears, then moves around the desk quickly, smoothly. Vanessa is reminded of the way she moved at the restaurant, swift and full of purpose.

She comes to a stop directly in front of Vanessa, waits a moment, then presses forward, backs her up against the wall, close enough to breathe the same air but not quite touching. Hesitates another beat. Combs a hand back into Vanessa's hair. Says, in a hoarse voice, "This okay?"

When Vanessa nods, Carolina cups her face with both hands, pulls her closer, kisses her on the forehead, the eyebrow, the lips. Her kisses are stubborn, solid, close-lipped, like she's trying to prove something. Her hands on Vanessa's face are trembling.

Vanessa pulls away for a moment, and has to grin at Carolina's affronted expression. "Relax," she says. She reaches around with her good arm, traces fingers down Carolina's spine, feels her arch into the touch, shivering with reaction. Tugs on the hem of her fatigue jacket, teasingly, then lets her hand migrate to the side of Carolina's ribcage and presses. She's pleasantly surprised when Carolina yields easily to the touch, the tension going out of her with a sigh. Slowly, carefully, she leverages Carolina around until she's the one up against the wall, their positions reversed. It hasn't occurred to her until now that Carolina's smaller than she is when they're out of armor.

"This okay?" she asks.

Carolina thinks about it, long enough that Vanessa starts to back off. Then she says, "More than okay," softly, like it's a revelation.

Vanessa presses her into the wall, dragging the pads of her fingers against the back of Carolina's scalp, and kisses her. When she tugs lightly on her hair, Carolina moans against her lips, and Vanessa takes the opportunity to lick her mouth open into a deeper kiss. Carolina's fumbling hands finally come to rest on her waist, pulling her closer with confident, casual strength. The heavy warmth of her is overwhelming, the points of contact lighting up Vanessa's nervous system, every minute shift of her hips, every shaky puff of breath magnified beyond all reason.

When they finally come up for air, Carolina says, "We should've done this a long time ago."

Vanessa grins, licks her lips, watches Carolina watch her do it. "Yup," she says. "I've been waiting for you to try that for weeks. That speed unit of yours is still malfunctioning, huh?"

Carolina laughs breathlessly. "Fuck you," she says, and Vanessa watches as her expressive face broadcasts the full knowledge of just how well she's set herself up.

"Well," Vanessa drawls, "maybe not at the office."


	3. Chapter 3

It's the first time in weeks she's made it home before nightfall.

Carolina follows Vanessa through the circuitous hallways to the apartment she's been living in for the past few months, chosen specifically for its anonymity. It's just late enough that the smell of her neighbors' dinner is still wafting through the air, the occasional echoed clatter of plates making them both jump. Carolina's nervous, Vanessa knows. She can hear the fidgeting any time she stops—to check her mail, to dig her keycard out of her wallet—but whenever she looks back, Carolina meets her gaze squarely, a crooked smile bringing out an improbable little dimple at the corner of her mouth.

"I feel like a teenager," Carolina says when Vanessa finally shoves her heavy front door open, kicking back the little garbage bag full of the past week's take-out dinner detritus. "I feel like I should be asking when your parents are getting home."

Vanessa snorts, pulling her jacket one-handed over the sling on her shoulder and hanging it on a hook next to the door, then toeing off her shoes. "Soundproof," she says.

Carolina is crouched down, bent over her boots, fidgeting with the laces. "Sorry?"

"One of the perks of being an important political figure," says Vanessa. She pushes the door shut behind her, grins at the reassuring heaviness of it. "It's assumed that I could be taking vital meetings at any time of the day or night in here. Ergo, everything's been soundproofed." She watches Carolina for a moment, then says, mostly to win herself another blush, "What I'm saying is that you can feel free to make as much noise as you like."

Carolina does indeed go beet red, but by the time she finally pulls off her boots, she's regained her composure. "You been testing that out solo? Because I gotta say, that mental picture..."

Vanessa threads her good hand back through Carolina's hair, tugs a little more roughly than before, and Carolina instantly slams her eyes shut and gives a long, low moan. The sound, coupled with the sight of Carolina flushed and crouched at her feet, is... well. "Okay," Vanessa says, her voice a little strangled. She lets go of Carolina's hair, watches her push herself to her feet with a self-satisfied little smirk.

She's got one of Vanessa's hoodies draped over her shoulders again—Vanessa has had to start bringing extras to the office, she steals them so often. With a snort, Vanessa grabs at it, pulls it off and turns to hang it up, then hesitates. Presses it to her face, inhales deeply. It smells like Carolina, like sweat and warmth and the way she tastes, but there's also the smell of the new shampoo Vanessa's been using. It smells like both of them.

"Dear diary," Carolina says, behind her. "Today I learned that the general of the New Republic of Chorus has a hoodie fetish. I followed her home, but all she wanted to do was sniff my clothes."

Vanessa throws the hoodie at Carolina, who catches it straight in the face with a snort of laughter. She _likes_ Carolina's laugh, the easy, goofy gracelessness of it. When Carolina throws it back at her, more gently, Vanessa catches it one-handed and hangs it up. "You're lucky you're cute," she says.

"How's the arm?" says Carolina. She's padding softly in sock feet around the living room, squinting at the empty walls, the mostly empty bookshelf, and Vanessa realizes after a moment that she's making a perimeter check. "Just want to make sure we're not disobeying doctor's orders or anything."

Vanessa sighs melodramatically. "You and your orders." When Carolina rolls her eyes, she shrugs and says, "I'll let you know if we're pushing it too hard." She grins. "Probably easier if I'm on top."

Carolina gets that blitzed-out look again, inhaling sharply. "Yeah," she says, "probably easier. Nice place, by the way."

Vanessa follows her gaze; the apartment's small, and it came pre-furnished with cheap, college-student fare. She hasn't really had time to unpack any of her own belongings from the boxes still in storage in the hall closet, has in fact been pulling each day's clothes out of one of those boxes and folding the laundry back in because she keeps forgetting to buy hangers. But the room is warm and clean and cozy. She wonders how long it's been since Carolina had a place of her own that wasn't in a military barracks; she's bunking now at the New Republic outpost in Armonia.

"It's not bad," she says. "Great view of the brick wall next door." Feeling an awkward silence looming, she flops down on the couch. It's not particularly comfortable, as couches go, but it's the nearest horizontal surface, and the bed seems a bit too far away for her liking just now.

Carolina perches on the couch beside her, about as far as she can conceivably get without sitting on another piece of furniture altogether. Vanessa frowns. "Hey," she says. "If you're uncomfortable with any of this, you can tell me."

Carolina seems to become aware of how she's sitting, shuffles a bit until she's propped against the back of the couch. "Not uncomfortable. Just..." She clears her throat, looks up at the ceiling. "If you wanted to, you know, order me around. Just to be clear. I'd be okay with that."

Vanessa cocks her head to one side. "Not your usual approach?" she asks, and shrugs when Carolina nods. "Learning experience for both of us, then. I appreciate what this means. I don't want to mess this up, Carolina, and I don't want to force you into anything you don't want to do."

"I know," says Carolina. "I mean, likewise." She slouches a little, sinking back into the couch. "I know you understand. I just want to... be clear."

"I'll check in on you," Vanessa says. "Red, yellow, green?"

Carolina glances down, picks at the seam of her fatigue pants. "I don't want you to feel you have to, I don't know. Make concessions for me."

Vanessa turns to face Carolina, presses an elbow into the back of the couch and rests her head on her hand. "Carolina. It's okay. Nothing about this is a concession or a chore. I want to see you come apart for me. I want to watch you _relax_. And I want you to want that as much as I do." Carolina smiles a little at that, and Vanessa keeps her voice to a calm, casual drawl. "Because let me tell you, I want that. Some nights, coming home late after arguing with you, I'd just picture you in your quarters with a hand between your legs, picture that moment when you'd finally just _let go_—"

"Green," Carolina says. "Holy _fuck_. Green." She presses closer, hesitates a moment, then climbs onto Vanessa's lap, straddling her, paying close attention to avoid bumping her arm in its sling. She combs both hands through Vanessa's hair, staring down at her, breathing so hard Vanessa feels like each breath is echoing in her own lungs.

"This you taking orders?" Vanessa says. Her voice comes out hoarse and shaky, which is kind of spoiling the general suave effect she's been going for here.

Carolina presses both hands against the back of the couch, to either side of Vanessa's head. "You complaining?" She bends in, a brief kiss that shifts to her chin, sucking down along the sharp line of her jaw. Vanessa inhales, bucking her hips up instinctively, and Carolina hums against her in a laugh. "Found the sweet spot, huh?"

Vanessa groans when Carolina grazes her teeth against the skin, then goes back to sucking and licking, moving up toward her earlobe. It takes Vanessa a moment to get it together enough to push her good hand up and under the back of Carolina's untucked fatigue shirt, skin on skin, rubbing her back in small circles, dragging her fingernails gently down the side of her spine. Carolina shivers, draws back to pant in Vanessa's ear when she does it again.

"How's this?" Vanessa says, digging her nails in harder.

Carolina gives a little gasp and buries her face in the crook of Vanessa's neck for a moment. "Green," she says. "I'd be okay with you drawing blood like that."

"I won't draw blood," says Vanessa, and digs the nails in harder still. "But I can leave marks."

Carolina groans, her hips jerking against Vanessa's for a moment, then pulls back a little. She stares at Vanessa for a moment. "You're gonna get hickeys. Sort of harder to see against your skintone, but they're definitely there."

Vanessa laughs, resting a hand on Carolina's hip. "You weren't kidding about the feeling-like-we're-teenagers thing, huh?"

"I like the sounds you make," says Carolina. Her voice is soft and serious and, Vanessa thinks, utterly _determined_. "I think I could spend all night dragging those sounds out of you."

Vanessa snorts and rolls her hips, drawing out a low, shaky sigh from Carolina. "Have you heard yourself moan? I've seen overwrought porno vids that were less wanton."

"Dear diary," says Carolina. "Today I learned that the general of the New Republic watches overwrought porno vids."

Vanessa pushes the smile from her face with an effort, cocks her head to one side. "Hey, Carolina? I want you to get on the floor."

Carolina blinks. "What?"

Vanessa pulls her hand away from Carolina's hip and dredges up her command voice, soft but strong. And, okay, she feels a little ridiculous, but... "I want you to sit down on the floor. Don't make me ask you twice."

Carolina flushes, nearly jumps vertically into the air in her haste to obey. She sits on the floor, crosslegged, and stares up at Vanessa. Her lips are already swollen, Vanessa notices. She's waiting.

"Take off your shirt," Vanessa says.

Carolina unbuttons the fatigue jacket, then pulls the t-shirt off over her head. Her hair flares up for a moment, staticky, then lies flat against her head. She's wearing a black sports bra, and the fact that it's nothing fancy reminds Vanessa again that this is an impromptu, spur-of-the-moment thing, and her breath catches in her throat. "Turn around," she says.

Carolina does. Standing apart from the litany of older scars criss-crossing her torso are the faint red marks of Vanessa's fingernails. Vanessa exhales slowly. "Turn back to face me. Take off the bra."

Carolina reaches back and unclasps it in one smooth motion, shrugging it off her shoulders without any sign of self-consciousness. Vanessa's never really been much of a tit person, but Carolina's are all softness, the large areolae a counterpoint to the lean, sculpted look of her muscles. Even as she watches, Carolina's nipples start hardening in the cooler air of the apartment.

"Jesus," Carolina says, softly. "You should see the look on your face right now. You're practically drooling."

"No talking until I say so." Vanessa leans forward a little, reaches out with her good hand, presses a finger to Carolina's lips. It takes Carolina a second to catch on, but then she takes the finger into her mouth, sucks at it, takes a second finger in and swirls her tongue around them both with a little smirk. Vanessa clears her throat, says, "Play with your nipples."

Carolina flicks at one, rolls the palm of her hand over it, sucks harder on Vanessa's fingers with a little moan. Pinches the second and groans louder, bucking her hips. Vanessa can just about picture her, lying in bed in her quarters...

She pulls her fingers free; Carolina lets them go with a wet 'pop'. Vanessa feels her own face heat when she says, "Do you think about me? At home, when you—"

"Yes," Carolina says. She's still got one nipple between her thumb and forefinger, pinches it again. "Yeah, all the time. I never come faster than when I pretend it's your hand instead of mine." She rolls the other nipple to hardness. She's biting her lip.

Vanessa slides off the couch so she's sitting across from Carolina, then pushes one of Carolina's hands aside, drags the pads of her spit-slick fingers against her nipple, leans forward to plant a kiss on the little hard nub, grazing her teeth against it. Carolina groans, arching her back, then bites down on her own lip again, harder.

When Vanessa pulls back, Carolina bucks her hips, reaches a hand down—

"Stop," Vanessa says, and Carolina freezes, panting, her hips still twitching. Vanessa watches her drag herself back under control, the blush spreading from her face down the front of her chest. "That's good. You're being so good. Lie on your back on the couch. Pants off, underwear on."

Carolina pulls her pants off, clambers up onto the couch and lies flat, legs slightly spread, hands clenched into fists at her sides. The underwear beneath her fatigues is a pair of simple grey panties. Vanessa swallows hard when she realizes there's already a patch of wetness visible between her legs.

"How're we doing?" she asks.

"Green," says Carolina. "God, green, yes."

Vanessa reaches up, holds a hand between Carolina's legs, hovering just above the wet cloth of her panties, and Carolina throws her head back, digging her fingers into the couch in an obvious attempt to keep from bucking into Vanessa's hand. Even without touch, the warmth of her radiates, and Vanessa takes a moment to savor it.

Then she leans in closer, slips her middle finger beneath the edge of Carolina's panties into the neatly trimmed thatch of blonde hair, and presses against the wet heat of her cunt. Carolina groans, and this time her hips do twitch up, but Vanessa matches the motion, keeping only the pad of her fingertip pressing against Carolina's labia. There's a bottle of lube somewhere in the forest of boxes back in storage, but Carolina's so wet...

Vanessa shifts position, getting her cramping legs out from under her and sitting down on the floor next to the couch. "Settling in for the long haul," she says, at Carolina's questioning look. She presses her finger in deeply and feels Carolina clench around her as she throws her head back again with a little groan. "Feeling pretty tight," she says. "You let me know if you think we need lube for anything."

"Been a while," Carolina gasps. "Haven't had much time for anything besides, ah—" Her breathing stutters for a moment when Vanessa pushes a second finger, and then a third, past her panties to bury them knuckle-deep beside the first. "—besides the palm of my hand, lately."

Vanessa shifts her position again for a better angle, then presses deep and curls her fingers. Carolina says, "_Fuck_," and bucks into her hand.

"I wish I had both hands free," Vanessa says, as calmly and conversationally as she can manage given the faces Carolina's making. "This sling's incredibly inconvenient. I'd like to keep you from moving around so much." In response, Carolina goes still, breathing hard. Mercilessly, Vanessa drags her fingers back, then plunges them in again, more forcefully. Carolina groans and squirms with the obvious effort it takes to keep still. "Might have to tie you down next time."

"Anyone ever tell you you're a smug little shit?" Carolina says, and gasps when Vanessa tilts her hand to brush up against her clit. "Don't stop, don't stop, don't—"

Grinning, Vanessa pulls her hand free—Carolina gives a thoroughly exasperated groan—and holds it up to show Carolina the wetness slicking her fingers. "Don't look so smug," Carolina says, between ragged breaths. "I bet you're practically dripping by now."

Vanessa gives a would-be casual shrug. "That would be a fair assessment. See, I've been fingering this gorgeous woman on my couch..."

"You fingering her or just talking about it?" Carolina says. "I mean, I'm just saying, it sounds like she _may_ have been pretty close to coming when you pulled out, there."

"Aw," says Vanessa. "As a gorgeous woman once told me, don't be such a baby." She makes a show of slowly licking her fingers clean, and when she oh-so-innocently swirls her tongue into the gap between her fingers, Carolina actually looks away, staring up at the ceiling. "You okay?"

"Your _fucking_ tongue," Carolina says. It comes out almost as a snarl. "Vanessa. _Please_."

Vanessa stills, pulls on her command voice again. "Please what?"

Carolina actually bites down on her knuckles for a second before she speaks again. "Please fuck me with your tongue."

"You know," Vanessa says, "I think I just might, since you asked so nicely." She gets up onto her knees, looks up and down the lean length of Carolina's body. Her hair's sticking to her forehead with sweat, her eyes wide, cheeks flushed. Her panties are still pushed to one side, the blonde curls soaked darker over her cunt. "Okay. Take off the panties. And—wait, are you still wearing your socks?"

Carolina sits up, tugs her panties down and off with impressive haste. "You never told me to take them off," she says.

"That shouldn't be nearly as hot as it is," Vanessa says. "Okay. Socks stay on. You want to do this with you on the couch and me on the floor here?"

"Yeah," Carolina says, shuffling back a little. "Your couch might get a little messy."

"Damn," Vanessa says. "You're right. It's a rental." She pushes to her feet, makes a quick detour to the bathroom to grab a towel, and chucks it across the room at Carolina, who catches it out of the air and spreads it beneath her before sitting on the couch again, her feet on the floor.

Vanessa crouches in front of her, pats one of her knees with her good hand, pauses a moment to rub at a knot of scar tissue over the kneecap. "Okay," she says. "You're gonna have to move forward a bit. Legs spread, c'mon." She grins up at Carolina, who's staring down at her, chest rising and falling.

"Wait," Carolina says. "How is it that I'm naked and about to come and you still have all your clothes on?"

"Sheer talent," Vanessa says, primly, and presses a kiss to Carolina's inner thigh before glancing up again. "I don't like having my hair pulled, but you can hold me down here if you like. Just tug if you want me to let up, okay?"

When Carolina nods, Vanessa bends forward again to the same spot at Carolina's inner thigh, sucks at it, then bites down. Carolina gives a strangled gasp, her hands digging into Vanessa's hair, but she doesn't pull. Vanessa sucks at the spot again for a moment, licks a kiss onto it, then moves forward. When she presses her tongue against Carolina's labia, Carolina shudders and sinks back into the couch. The thought of Carolina going limp, boneless with pleasure, hits so close to some of Vanessa's favorite fantasies that she has to pause for a moment and regroup, take in the reality of the situation: Carolina, slumped above her on her couch, her legs spread, her head tilted back.

"You really are gorgeous," Vanessa says, softly, and licks Carolina open in a long stroke from her clit down to her perineum. When Carolina gives an uninhibited groan and presses her hands back into Vanessa's hair, she opts to focus on the clit, lapping her tongue quickly against it. Carolina yelps her name, jerks her head back. Vanessa smiles, hums against her, then presses her fingers into Carolina's cunt, pushing aside the labia so she can plunge her tongue into the wet opening.

Carolina _moans_, loud and shaky, bucking her hips, seeking a faster rhythm in the slow drag of Vanessa's tongue, and her hands tighten and release in Vanessa's hair, slide down to the nape of her neck, skim back up to pull Vanessa in even closer. Carolina fucks herself on Vanessa's tongue, swearing softly, and when Vanessa presses two fingers hard against her clit, Carolina goes taut and silent, coming in wave after wave of clenched muscles, hot and wet on Vanessa's tongue, her spine arching off the couch. Vanessa glances up in time to see the look on her face, eyes closed, face flushed, lips slightly parted.

Vanessa pulls back, panting, scrubbing her wet chin with her sleeve, then leverages Carolina—gone easy and pliant—onto her back, yanks her legs impatiently up onto the couch and straddles her, fully clothed. Carolina stares up at her in a stunned sort of way, her swollen lips still parted, and Vanessa slams forward into a rough kiss, pulling Carolina's lower lip into her mouth and dragging her teeth against it until she tastes blood. Carolina groans, softly, and Vanessa pulls back enough to say, "I shouldn't like making you bleed."

"Green," Carolina says. There's a little trickle of blood running down her chin from her split lip. "For fuck's sake, just, green."

Vanessa leans in, kisses her wet and sloppy and coppery, presses two fingers back into her wet cunt, then a third. Just holds them there until Carolina shudders and starts rolling her hips, setting her own pace. When that pace becomes uneven, frantic, Vanessa curls her fingers again, pulls back from her kiss, watches Carolina sink into another orgasm, feels the puff of each gasping breath. When her hips finally stutter to a halt, Vanessa kisses her again, more gently, rolls her hand up to press her palm against Carolina's clit.

"I'm good," Carolina says, hoarsely, reaching to pull Vanessa's hand away. "God, okay, that's good, that's too much." Vanessa relents, but only to position herself over Carolina, to press her down into the couch. "Too many clothes," Carolina mumbles, but immediately pulls Vanessa down to nuzzle into her shoulder.

"You're making this more difficult, then," Vanessa says, and, unable to resist, rubs the crotch of her jeans once against Carolina's wet cunt. They both shudder at the friction, and Carolina lets Vanessa back up to unzip her pants and pull them down, to tug her panties off impatiently. After a moment's hesitation, she keeps her damn socks on, too.

Carolina is watching her, licking the blood from her lower lip in a distracted sort of way. "Where do you want me?" she asks.

"Fingers," Vanessa decides, straddling Carolina again. This time, she moves to press her good arm down as a bar against Carolina, positioning it over her throat. "You okay with this?"

Carolina hesitates. "Yellow," she says. "I... no, red. I don't..."

"It's fine," says Vanessa, and pulls her arm back to pin Carolina down just beneath her collarbone. "Better?"

Carolina hums an affirmative, then presses a hand between Vanessa's legs, dragging the palm slowly back against her clit. Vanessa gives a shuddering sigh, feels Carolina laugh beneath her. "God," Carolina says, "you look amazing right now."

"Okay," Vanessa pants. "New rule: you don't get to stop talking."

Carolina squirms under her arm, manages to curl up to kiss her. "I can work with that." She drags her palm back against Vanessa's clit again—she has no business having that many fucking _calluses_—then presses a finger deep into her cunt. "You're so wet," Carolina says. "I mean, you have no idea. You weren't touching yourself that whole time—" She pulls the finger out, slowly, dragging her palm back as she does so, and Vanessa leans more and more of her weight against her until Carolina relents and plunges knuckle-deep again. "—and you got so wet just thinking about it."

"Never mind," Vanessa says, her breath catching when Carolina adds another finger. "Dirty talk seemed like a good idea, but has anybody ever told you you're a smug little shit?" She pushes forward into another rough kiss, swallowing Carolina's rejoinder, and fucks herself on Carolina's fingers, rocking up and into her palm to give her clit a little attention with each thrust. When Carolina curls her fingers, pinpointing the G-spot with alarmingly quick accuracy, Vanessa gives up on trying to drag this into something slow, starts bucking her hips in quick, stuttering motions, bites down hard on Carolina's lip, and comes tasting blood and sweat and sex, Carolina's fingers plunging deep inside her, Carolina's body pinned beneath her.

She whites out for a second, rides out the aftershocks with her eyes closed, keeping herself tethered to the uneven catch in Carolina's breathing, then slumps over her with a gasp, burying her face in the crook of Carolina's neck. Carolina pulls her fingers out, slides them wet and warm under her shirt to make circles on the small of Vanessa's back, an idle, lazy motion. She's probably not even aware she's doing it, but Vanessa figures a shower's probably in order for both of them before bed, anyway.

"I screamed," Vanessa says, propping her chin up on Carolina's chest to look her in the eyes, "didn't I?"

Carolina says, "Maybe a little," and grins crookedly. Her lip's swelling, although the bleeding's already stopped. Her eyes are half-lidded. She looks more relaxed than Vanessa's ever seen her.

Vanessa tugs on Carolina's green-blue stripe of hair. "You okay?"

Carolina closes her eyes with a contented little sigh. "More than okay."

Impulsively, Vanessa leans forward, plants a quick, close-mouthed kiss on Carolina's lips. "I'm glad we did this."

Carolina's fingers stop circling the small of Vanessa's back; instead, she loops her arm around her waist, as though she's trying to pull Vanessa even closer to her. "Me too," she says.

They lie like that for a long time, just breathing the same air, and then Carolina says, in a soft, dreamy voice, "Dear diary: today I fucked a general," and Vanessa rolls over to kick her off the couch.


	4. Chapter 4

The office feels different, after that. They keep long hours, spending most nights arguing protocol and philosophy over take-out from the restaurant down the street—since the attack, the owner always insists on sending them a complimentary container of gulab jamun. Katie Jensen, who's been splitting her duties between running Simmons' squad in his absence and training as Vanessa's new aide-de-camp, walks in on them stealing a kiss and spends the rest of the day following Vanessa around with a perpetual blush.

They fall into a new sort of routine. Vanessa discovers that Carolina snores when she sleeps on her back. Carolina insists that Vanessa needs to learn how to roll a toothpaste tube properly and matter-of-factly starts the daunting process of unpacking the forest of boxes in her closet. Carolina's habit of postcoital punning gets her kicked out of bed at least once a week.

As Vanessa's shoulder heals, Carolina insists on helping her with the strengthening exercises, and for the first time Vanessa has a real sense of what she was like as a commanding officer: a little too impatient with slow progress or excuses, a little too likely to seek personal credit and praise for her patient's rapid recovery, but extremely competent and genuinely pleased each time Vanessa manages to increase her range of motion. She regains full use of the arm, and they devote some of their time to a more relaxed and intimate variety of physical therapy.

Once Vanessa's full recovery is assured, Carolina puts much of her energy into pursuing her investigation of the attack. She insists, sitting at Vanessa's kitchen table in the morning with a datapad and a plate of sali par edu, that Martin's intel is suggestive of a larger-scale attack. She's stopped asking to pull in Vanessa's most trusted colleagues for interrogation, and in return Vanessa hears her out, accepts many of her recommendations for heightened security at the New Republic headquarters in Armonia.

Shortly afterwards, a newspaper with strong Republic sympathies prints a scathing, full-page exposé of Kimball's New Republic. It lambasts the upcoming rigged election, the paranoid security measures, the fact that Vanessa has rarely been seen in public since the attack. It calls her a puppet for the Federal Army.

Vanessa spends most of the week calming Carolina down, keeping her from snapping at anyone who happens to bring a copy of the newspaper in to work, talking her down from leading a military march on the editorial staff. A week after that, Carolina has to return the favor when a column appears about Kimball's Freelancer, about Kimball's War Criminal masquerading as a hero.

Vanessa hires a half-dozen recent graduates of the communications program at Armonia University, sits them down with her public relations experts. A reporter gets wind of this and calls her a spin doctor. She leverages her silence on the topic of this year's mayoral election to force through free and immediate elections on the five-person City Council, which results in four of her own people being elected, establishing a majority that will undercut any Fed-backed mayoral politicking. The late-night news accuses her of ballot stuffing.

She says, "I'm done," more than once, paces up and down the length of her tiny apartment until Carolina manages to corner her and sit her down with a cup of masala chai. Carolina digs up the positive reports, the political scientists praising what they term Kimball's policy of 'ruthless compromise'. Carolina finds the stories of the young women across Chorus who look up to Vanessa as a role model, makes sure they're the ones scrolling across her vidscreen first thing in the morning.

"Trust your team," Carolina says, kissing the words into the hollow of Vanessa's throat, and for a little while the future doesn't seem nearly as daunting.

* * *

The evening before the mayoral election, Vanessa is working alone in her office when Katie Jensen steps inside without knocking and slams the door shut behind her. She looks flustered, her hair sticking out at all angles from her messy ponytail. "General," she says, tries a clumsy salute and nearly stumbles over her own feet. "General, there's something wrong!"

Vanessa cocks her head to one side; Katie is jittery at the best of times, but now she seems genuinely, deeply distressed. "What's going on, Lieutenant? Sit down."

Katie shakes her head. "No time," she says. She sneezes explosively into her hand, says, "Aw, crap," and keeps speaking as she fishes a tissue out of her pocket to wipe up the mess. "General, I think we're about to be under attack!"

As though to punctuate her statement, the lights flicker and a distant rumbling vibrates through the floor. Vanessa freezes, and for a moment all she can think about is that she has no idea where Carolina is in the building. She shakes off the terrified paralysis, reaches into her desk drawer for the sidearm that's been gathering dust. "Report, Lieutenant."

Katie's staring worriedly at the door behind her, wringing her hands as she speaks in rapidfire sentences. "I saw two guys with assault rifles just strolling casually through the hallways, and at first I was like, is this the new security force? But one of them looked at me, and I recognized him as one of the space pirates from Captain Simmons' helmet footage. I was gonna raise an alarm, but then I realized he was walking with Lantau, who was the cook at the old headquarters, remember him? And I didn't know who I could trust. So I came straight here."

Vanessa swallows hard. "You did well, Katie. Hang on." She taps into her comm link, but it's all static. Short-range jamming signal, probably. "Are you armed?"

Katie nods, pulls a pistol out from under her fatigue jacket.

"Okay." Vanessa stands. For the first time in a long, long while, she misses her armor. "You're with me. Hopefully we can defuse the situation before it gets violent."

Katie is staring at her, wide-eyed. "Ma'am? We're going _out there_?"

Vanessa softens her voice with an effort. "Katie. Look at me. We're going to be okay. I know Lantau, and I'm betting all he'll want is to air his grievances. Even Hargrove's goon won't be able to shoot me in cold blood in front of a building full of people, but if he catches me cowering in my office by myself, he'll be able to pass my assassination off as anything he likes. Right now, we want to be in the middle of the action. We want witnesses. There aren't a lot of people still here at this time of night, but we want to find them."

Katie chews on her lower lip, her eyebrows drawing together in distress, then exhales once, sharply. "I knew you'd say that," she says. "Okay. I'm with you, General."

"Keep your pistol out of sight for now," Vanessa says, tucking her own into her belt and tugging a hoodie on to cover it. "We go in peacefully. I want to hear what Lantau has to say."

Katie snaps a less shaky salute, then says, "General, I—" and stops. Looks away. "Right. Let's go."

The hallways are eerily deserted without the usual bustle of noise and activity. Vanessa forces her stride into something quick and even, and on a hunch starts walking toward the atrium in the center of the building. As she gets nearer, though, her composure starts to falter. She can hear the sound of a fight, the slam of a body against a wall, and then, chillingly, the rattle of machine-gun fire.

She breaks into a sprint, rounds the corner to the staircase leading down into the atrium. Freezes.

There are a dozen staffers kneeling on the floor with their hands behind their heads, some sporting bloody noses or contusions. Four people are striding among them, guns at the ready, including Lantau, who's apparently just finished firing his gun at the ceiling.

Carolina is also on her knees, swaying, blood streaming from a deep cut at the back of her head. Judging by the way two of the gunmen are limping, she's been putting up a fight. Even as Vanessa watches, Carolina gets her feet under her again. One of the gunmen sees this attempt immediately, whips the stock of his rifle across her face. Carolina spits blood, pushes herself up again, but the snarl on her face shifts to confusion and she tilts alarmingly to one side, pressing a hand to the side of her face and staring at the blood that coats it. She shakes her head, wobbles precariously, starts standing.

"Stay down," Vanessa snaps. All four gunmen turn to stare up at her, standing at the top of the staircase, and bring their weapons to bear. Behind them, Carolina stumbles again, slumps bonelessly to the floor. She doesn't get up, doesn't even move, and Vanessa can't focus on that, she can't think about it right now. She holds her hands up in an appeasing gesture. "What the hell is going on here?"

"General," says Lantau, and seems to catch himself just short of snapping to attention. "Bring her down here."

"I'll stay up here if it's all the same to you," Vanessa says. She's looking at the other three men, trying to place their faces, without success. She's pretty sure that means they're Hargrove's soldiers. "Lantau, what is this?"

"You've been—" Lantau pauses, swallows. "You've been harboring war criminals, General. You've been rigging elections. You're a damn puppet for the Feds."

"So your solution is to come in here and shoot up our headquarters," Vanessa says. She tries to keep her voice calm, level. Behind Lantau, the on-duty medic is shuffling forward, still on her knees, trying to get closer to Carolina. "Lantau. You can talk to me about these things, but I need you to know that you're being manipulated. At least one of the men with you works for Hargrove."

Lantau snorts, then says, again, "Bring her down here."

It occurs to Vanessa that he's not actually talking to the other gunmen at the same time as she feels a pistol's barrel shakily pressed to the small of her back. Vanessa closes her eyes. Breathes.

"Katie," she says, without turning around. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry," Katie says. Her voice is small, quavering, but the pistol's barrel has stopped shaking in her hand. "My best friend died on the day of the ceasefire, and you weren't, you weren't _there_. You jumped ship, went straight after the Freelancers and the Reds and Blues, and we needed you _here_. I didn't even find out until a day later because all the casualty reports were delayed. I thought we could do some good, and with the election coming, I thought we could—" She inhales sharply, presses the muzzle of the pistol against Vanessa's spine. "Just walk down the stairs, General. Please."

Vanessa walks. There's a roaring stillness in her ears, and she has to hang onto the banister, not as support so much as to keep herself anchored, to make this _real_. One of the gunmen snarls a warning at the medic, who backs away from Carolina with her hands raised. There's blood pooling on the floor under Carolina's head. From this distance, Vanessa can't tell whether or not she's breathing.

When she reaches the bottom of the stairs, Lantau tilts his head. "Is she armed?"

Katie pushes up the edge of Vanessa's hoodie with her pistol, pulls Vanessa's sidearm roughly from her belt and throws it to the ground, where it skids off to a dark, distant corner of the atrium. Vanessa thinks, hazily, of the little candy wrapper she'd noticed under the table at the restaurant. Out of reach.

Vanessa breathes. "Listen to me," she says, dropping her voice to a near-whisper. It's an effective technique; even Hargrove's goons stop moving and hold still, the better to hear her. "You're being misled. Hargrove is attacking Chorus through you. He's trying to prolong the conflict."

"We all heard Felix's speech," Lantau says. "He didn't create the conflict. He was capitalizing on something that was already happening, happening for good reason! You know how many people have died for this war, General. You _know_."

He still calls her General. "I do know," Vanessa says, softly. "I know that I've been doing my best, and I know that my best hasn't always been good enough when dealing with a hostile government that holds all the cards. I know that in spite of all this, I still believe in what we can accomplish, given half a chance. I know that I might not be the one you need to lead you through this, and I know that it might mean stepping down and letting someone else take my place."

Lantau hesitates. Visibly. He says, "You'd step down?"

"I've been working on defining the political aspects of my position more formally, so that I can call an election for it as soon as is feasibly possible." Vanessa's gaze wanders again to Carolina's limp body, and she has to pause and take a breath. "We're entering into a complicated transition. What we have now is closest to martial law. That's unsustainable. The Feds are rigging the mayoral election, but I managed to leverage my influence to open free elections on the City Council."

"Those were more rigged elections," Lantau says. "We don't want this city handed to us. We want it fairly won."

"_Free_ elections," Vanessa says, sharply. "We can strive for transparency all we want, but for that to work we need our people to start paying attention, to keep asking questions." She takes a breath, lowers her voice again. "We have the power, Lantau. Fairly won. But the war's not over by any stretch of the imagination. We're fighting it every day in boardrooms and courtrooms, and it's working. Slowly. We're changing things for the better. And I believe we're accomplishing more here than we ever did, hiding out in our caves and making attacks on supply runs. We're more than that."

Lantau just looks at her. Behind him, two of Hargrove's men exchange glances. Vanessa says, softly, "I trust my team, Lantau."

Something presses into the small of her back; Katie's gun, but not the barrel. Vanessa reaches back, and Katie presses the handle of her pistol into the palm of her hand.

One of Hargrove's men says, "Wait, what are you—"

Vanessa raises the pistol and fires.

She shoots to wound, catches Hargrove's man in the arm, and he goes down with a scream. Behind him, two of the hostages grab the legs of another gunman and drag him to the floor, starting a dogpile on top of him. And Carolina—Vanessa actually stumbles, dizzy with relief—Carolina rockets to her feet, drags Hargrove's third man into a headlock, yanks the bar of her arm back against his throat until he wheezes and drops his rifle.

Vanessa stares at Lantau, who stares back at her, then slowly, carefully, lowers his rifle to the floor. One of the on-duty guards confiscates the weapon, passes Lantau off to one of her subordinates, then takes a hesitant step toward Katie.

Vanessa glances back. Katie meets her gaze, eyes wide and terrified. Vanessa says, softly, "It's all right. She was acting under my orders. She was the one who warned me about this in the first place. She risked her life to infiltrate this group as a spy for me."

The guard cocks her head to one side. "Are you... I'm sorry to say this, ma'am, but are you sure?"

Vanessa smiles. "I trust her. It's all right. She's part of my team."

The guard shrugs and moves off to help secure the final prisoners. Vanessa leaves Katie, standing stunned at the foot of the stairs, and walks over to where Carolina's sitting on the floor. The medic is bent over her, one hand under her chin, tilting her head from side to side.

"Hi," says Carolina, when Vanessa moves closer.

Vanessa crouches next to her, presses a hand to the small of her back, says, "Hi," and tries to ignore the way her voice cracks. "You scared the hell out of me."

Carolina scowls at the medic. "They caught me off-guard. One of them clubbed me in the back of the head while I was staring at a vending machine. Guess I've forgotten how to take a hit out of armor. Woke up here. I feel fine," she says, with a more emphatic glower at the medic.

The medic is shaking her head. "Lucid interval," she says. "That'll pass. Your condition will deteriorate quickly. Your right pupil's blown. You're bleeding into your brain and we need to get you into surgery as soon as possible."

Vanessa's breath catches. She looks around for someone to shout orders to. The medic notices her lost look, presses a hand to Carolina's shoulder when she tries to stand up. "General. It's okay. I have someone on it. We'll take good care of her."

"Good," Vanessa says. The roaring in her ears is back. "That's good."

Carolina says, "I feel fine. I'm okay." She shrugs off the medic's hand, but her whole body tilts drunkenly to one side. "I'm just, I just—"

Vanessa tastes bile at the back of her throat, presses a hand to Carolina's shoulder, right where the join would be between her chestplate and pauldron. Waits for Carolina's unfocused eyes to wander back to her, waits for her panicked breathing to slow. "Carolina, relax. It's okay. They're going to take good care of you. Trust me on this, huh?"

Carolina squints at her, mutters, "You're lucky you're cute," and slumps against Vanessa, her breathing too-shallow, too-fast. When Vanessa tilts Carolina's head back, pressing a hand against her bloodied forehead, she's unconscious.

The medic says, gently, "Let me lay her down, General. She'll be all right once she gets to surgery. We'll call you as soon as we know anything."

Vanessa lets the medic take Carolina from her, stumbles back when a swarm of medical personnel descend on her. Sits down, dazedly, on a bench in the atrium until one of the medics starts giving her worried looks, then retreats to her office and hunches over her desk, presses her face into her bloodstained hands, and waits for the call.


	5. Chapter 5

**Epilogue**

Carolina is a miserable patient.

Four days into recovery, the first time Vanessa leaves her room, Carolina bluffs the hospital employees into releasing her into her own care. Vanessa finds her lying on the ground just outside the hospital, rubbing her forehead and complaining of a terrible headache, and only makes fun of her three times on the way back to her room.

Six days into recovery, Carolina starts working again, thanks to a steady supply line of datapads snuck in by the more easily intimidated staffers. Vanessa starts searching her room before leaving each night, puts Katie on guard outside to stop any nocturnal deliveries.

Eight days into recovery, Vanessa is sitting alongside Carolina's bed, her feet propped up on the edge, a datapad in her hand, when Carolina says, "I composed a song I thought you'd enjoy," and launches into a wildly off-key Ode to Boredom. Vanessa speaks to the head physician, who relents and allows her patient a couple hours of low-energy work time each day. It's around the same time that reports start coming in from Wash and the Reds and Blues, another leg of their journey to take down Hargrove. Carolina reads their missives—and misadventures—aloud to Vanessa until her eyes start straining, and then Vanessa reads to her.

Carolina's slated to make a full recovery, eventually, but the doctors remind her again and again that she's suffered an injury to her brain, that it will take longer for the headaches and neurological symptoms to fade. Vanessa notices, some days, that Carolina will ask the same question twice, as though expecting a different answer. Some days, Carolina is withdrawn, uncharacteristically quiet. Once, she catches Carolina off-guard, curled onto her side, facing away from the door, scrubbing tears from her face with the palm of her hand.

"Give it time," Vanessa says, pressing her lips to Carolina's forehead, her eyebrow, her lips. "You'll be all right." And the more time passes, the more Carolina starts to believe her.

* * *

Three weeks after she enters the hospital, Carolina is released.

On the first night, Vanessa props her up with pillows in her apartment, in her bed, sits down next to her, touches her carefully, gently, until Carolina laughs and reminds her that she is certifiably healthy, that there is actual medical evidence that she's not going to break. It's not quite her old laugh, not quite as patently ridiculous, but it's near enough for now, and Vanessa grins and straddles her, pins her down.

Later, when Vanessa's curled against Carolina's back with her chin on her shoulder, she says, "We okay?" and Carolina hums a sleepy affirmative into her pillow. Vanessa drags a finger through her hair—long enough now to tangle and catch and pull with every motion, which isn't exactly a bad thing—and says, "You want me to help you dye it again? It's starting to fade."

"Just the red's fading," Carolina mumbles. "Blue-green's still good."

"That's because the dye those kids sold you is probably highly toxic and burned into your hair for eternity," Vanessa says, and when Carolina laughs, she feels like all the points of contact between them light up at once. "Happy to help if you need it."

Carolina thinks about it, or possibly falls asleep for a minute, then says, "M'fine with just the blue-green for now. More important."

Vanessa tightens her grip on Carolina, pulls her in closer, breathes against the shell of her ear. "I thought I'd have to do this without you."

Carolina shifts, sleepily, stretching out a bit to tangle her legs with Vanessa's. "You're such a pessimist," she says. "I don't know how I put up with you. Always expecting the worst of people. Never believing in anyone. Just awful."

"I'd just like to remind you," Vanessa says, "that I'm in the optimal position here to deliver a wet willie."

"Awful, awful person," Carolina says. "Pretty much the worst."

Vanessa settles for blowing a raspberry against the side of Carolina's neck, and Carolina gives a longsuffering sigh, curling tighter, pressing back into her. They stay like that for a while, their breathing leveling off, and then Carolina says, softly, "I was wrong about Bitters. And I noticed Katie Jensen is still your aide-de-camp."

Vanessa pulls back a little, finger-combs Carolina's hair, running a hand gently along the raised ridge of the surgical incision at the back of her head, then shifting her touch down toward the older scars at the nape of her neck. Carolina shivers in reaction, goosebumps rising along her arms. "She is," Vanessa says. "She's bright and dedicated."

"She nearly got you killed."

"Yes. And then she saved my life," Vanessa says. She kisses, gently, every scar she can see, then says, "I believe in second chances. I trust my team. Chorus looks after its own."

Carolina is still for a moment, then rolls over to face her. What Vanessa can see of her expression in the dark is utterly, hopelessly awestruck. "Yeah," she says. "I guess it does."

Vanessa falls asleep smiling into the crook of Carolina's neck, thinking of the evac ship all those months ago, the planet's surface laid out below them, turning slow and steady beneath their bodies.

When she dreams, she dreams they're flying.


End file.
